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WORTH WHILE 
PIECES 



Collected By 

Archibald Humboldt 



The very cream of pithy, pointed, 
pungent literature. Poems and 
prose, grave and gay, ludicrous and 
pathetic, noble and brilliant, breezy 
and inspiring. Culled from every- 
where and every one exceptionally 
meritorious. Not only valuable as 
a collection of recitations, but as a 
book of happy thoughts, terse say- 
ings and fine expression. 



MARCH BROTHERS, Publishers 

208, 210, 212 WRIGHT AVE., LEBANON, OHIO 





No Entertainments Exchanged. 
No Entertainments sent on selection or suoject to return. 











WORTH 
WHILE 
PIECES 




COLLECTED BY 

ARCHIBALD 
HUMBOLDT 


MARCH BROTHERS 

PUBLISHERS 
208, 210, 212 WRIGHT AVENUE 
LEBANON , OHIO 












^K' 



Copyright, 1911, 
By March Brothers. 






©CU296590 



WORTH WHILE PIECES 



Collected By 

ARCHIBALD HUMBOLDT 



Avenged. 

If I should quarrelwith thee, friend, and say- 
Hard things from sudden spite, 
Be sure my sorrow will revenge thee quite 

Before the passing of another day; 
So give me way. 

Seek not to check the madness of my course; 
Each word shall be a dart 
To lodge and rankle at mine inmost heart. 
Thou art avenged by mine own remorse, 
With sevenfold force. 

— Arthur L. Salmon, in the Academy. 

<$> <*> <8> 
Revenge. 

Revenge is a naked sword; 

It has neither hilt nor guard. 
Wouldst thou wield this brand of the Lord? 

Is thy grasp, then, firm and hard? 

But the closer thy clutch of the blade, 

The deadlier blow thou wouldst deal, 
Deeper wound in thy hand is made — 

It is thy blood reddens the steel. 

And when thou hast dealt the blow — 

When the blade from thy hand has flown— 
Instead of the heart of a foe 

Thou mayst find it sheathed in thine own! 

— John Paul. 
<S> <S> <8> 

Earnestness promotes promptness. 

<§> <$> <8> 

So long as we love, we serve. So long as we are loved by 
others I would almost say we are indispensable; and no man 
is useless while he has a friend. — Robert Louis Stevenson. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



The Enduring Dream. 

In life's fresh morn I dreamed — 'twas long ago — 
That I would perfect be. The air was clear, 
And mountain heights, in spirit-space, seemed near. 
"One more, an easy climb, and then the glow 

Of summit-joy!" Ah me, I did not know 
How steep and hard the way; I did not hear 

The thunder in the hills, nor guess how slow 
My bleeding feet must toil up paths of fear! 

In life's calm eve, as long ago, I dream 

That I shall perfect be. Not near, but far, 
The heights I face; but on my path a gleam 

Of hope falls lustrous as the evening star; 
And near my Guide, whose pain-pierced feet have trod 
The long, upclimbing road that leads to God. 

— /. T. McFarland. 
<S> <$> <$> 

Boy's Remarks to His Stomach. 

What's the matter with you, ain't I always been your friend? 
Ain't I been a pardner to you, all my pennies don't I spend 
In gettin' nice things for you? Don't I give you lots of cake? 
Say, stummick, what's the matter, that you had to go an' ache ? 

Why, I loaded you with good things yesterday. I gave you more 
Potatoes, squash an' turkey than you'd ever had before. 
I gave you nuts an' candy, punkin pie an' chocolate cake, 
An' las' night when I got to bed you had to go an' ache. 

Say, what's the matter with you; ain't you satisfied at all? 
I gave you all you wanted, you was hard, jes' like a ball. 
An' you couldn't hold another bit of puddin', yet las' night 
You ached mos' awful, stummick ; that ain't treatin' me jes' right. 

I've been a friend to you, I have, why ain't you a friend o' mine ? 
They gave me castor oil las' night becoz you made me whine. 
I'm awful sick this mornin' an' I'm feelin' mighty blue, 
Becoz you don't appreciate the things I do for you. 

— Detroit Free Pre*ss. 
<£ ♦ <S> 

To-morrow you have no business with. You steal if you 
touch to-morrow. It is God's. Every day has in it enough to 
keep any man occupied without concerning himself with the 
things beyond. — Henry Ward Beecher. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



The Teacher. 

Lord, who am I to teach the way 
To little children day by day, 
So prone myself to go astray? 

I teach them knowledge, but I know 
How faint they flicker, and how low 
The candles of my knowledge glow. 

I teach them power to will and do, 

But only now to learn anew 

My own great weakness through and through. 

I teach them love for all mankind 
And all God's creatures, but I find 
My love comes lagging still behind. 

Lord, if their guide I still must be, 

Oh, let the little children see 

The teacher leaning hard on Thee. 

—Leslie P. Hill. 

<$> <S> <3> 

Now, All Together. 

Sometimes a chap pays what he owes, 

In spite of the funny man. 
Girls think of other things than clothes, 

In spite of the funny man. 
Sometimes a doctor makes one well, 
A fair stenographer can spell; 
Sometimes a marriage turns out well, 

In spite of the funny man. 

A girl isn't always afraid of a mouse, 

In spite of the funny man. 
You're glad to have mother-in-law at your house, 

In spite of the funny man. 
An office boy's grandmother dies ; * 
The little wifey makes good pies, 
And women, asked their age, scorn lies, 

In spite of the funny man. 

— Boston Transcript. 

Actually. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



Lay of the Blues. 

Say, are you ever, without any reason 
Especially for it, in 'most any season, 
Swept with a wave of that O-I-am-Tired-fulness, 
Man-who's-just-Hired-fulness, Wish-I-was-Fired- fulness ? 
Say, do you ever, while working and fretting, 
Hoping and sorrowing, thinking, forgetting, 
Have that soul-emptying What-is-the-Use-fulness, 
That O-the-Deuce-fulness, O-for-a-Trucefulness 
Sort of a spell? 

Say, did you ever feel just when you're working 
Your top level best, with no thinking of shirking 
That life and its labor is all a Hot-Air-fulness, 
What-is-my-Share-fulness, O-I-don't-Care-fulness 
Sort of a game, just a juggle and fight 
With one thing in hand and a dozen in sight 
But just out of reach? O, that What's-in-it- All-fulness, 
Lord-ain't-it-Small-fulness, Gone-to-the-Wall- fulness 
Sort of a spell? 

Say, but I've had 'em, without any reason 
Especially for 'em, in mos' any season. 
Had that soul-frightening What-is-the-End-fulness 
O-for-a-Friend-fulness, Too-Late-to-Mend-fulness 
Sort of a feeling — that sort of a fallowness, 
Kind of a hollowness, sort of a shallowness. 
Had that soul-darkening What-is-the-Use-fulness 
That O-the-Deuce-fulness, Lord-here's-the-Blues-fulness 
Sort of a spell. 

— /. IV. Foley. 
<& $> ♦ 

A man should act like a guest at a banquet. When the 
waiter passes by with something he wants he should decide and 
act immediately, and not wait until the waiter has passed and 
look at the waiter longingly wishing he had taken something. 
While he is looking at the vanishing waiter, other waiters are 
passing by offering opportunities. An opportunity once passed 
can never be taken advantage of again. On the other hand, 
the guest at the banquet should not pass his time looking at 
the waiter just entering the hall, for he is missing opportunities 
if he spends his time looking for some good time to come in 
the future. Instead of grasping present opportunities, the 
guest who divides his time between watching the waiters who 
have passed and the waiters who are coming, misses many 
waiters who pass before hjm offering him a chance to grasp 
present opportunities. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



If— 

If you can keep your head when all about you 

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; 
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 

But make allowance for their doubting, too: 
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 

Or being lied about don't deal in lies, 
Or being hated don't give way to hating, 

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; 



If you can dream and not make dreams your master; 

If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim, 
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster 

And treat those two impostors just the same, 
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken 

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, 
Or watch the things you give your life to, broken, 

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools; 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 
And lose, and start again at your beginnings 

And never breathe a word about your loss; 
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 

To serve your turn long after they are gone, 
And so hold on when there is nothing in you 

Except the will which says to them: "Hold on!" 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 

Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch, 
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, 

If all men count with you, but none too much; 
If you can fill the unforgiving minute 

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, 
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 

And — which is more — you'll be a Man, my son. 

— Rudyard Kipling in American Magazine. 

<8> <*> <$> 

It is not what we get out of life but what we put into it 
that counts. We can not put anything much into our own 
lives without first putting its equivalent into the lives of others. 
"Not what we give, but what we share." 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



The Prayer of the Frank Young Man. 

Save me, Lord, from hell, 

For this I pray; 
And some time save from sin — 

But not to-day. 
I've youth and health, and may 
Not give up pleasure's sway, 
Nor drink that brings me, in 

Beguiling way, 
Within its magic spell. 

I am an average man, 

And better far 
Than many men and some 

Few women are; 
Yet do not ask me, Lord, 
To quite obey thy Word 
Till failing zest shall come, 

Till age shall mar, 
And then perhaps I can. 

But save from sickness, Lord, 

And give long life: 
Grant what the world calls good, 

And in the strife 
Keep off remorse and shame, 
Grant sin without the blame; 
In age no doubt I could, 

With a good wife 
To help, obey thee, Lord. 

— George Lee Burton. 
<$> <S> <& 

May Wound a Heart. 

"I shot an arrow into the air, it fell in the distance, I 
knew not where till a neighbor said that it killed his calf, and 
I had to pay him six and a half ($6.50). I bought some poison 
to slay some rats and a neighbor swore it killed his cats; and 
rather than argue across the fence, I paid him four dollars and 
fifty cents ($4-5°) • One night I sat sailing a toy balloon and 
hoped it would soar till it reached the moon; but the candle 
fell out on a poor man's straw, and he said I must settle or 
go to law. And that is the way with the random shot, it never 
hits the proper spot; and the joke you spring that you think so 
smart, may leave a wound in some fellow's heart." 



WORTH WHILE PIECES 



A Brave Fight. 

People said there was little excuse for Doctor Martin. So 
far as was known, he inherited no appetite for liquor, and if 
any man in town knew the evil consequences of the drink 
habit, he knew it. So it might have been said that he went 
into temptation with his eyes open. 

In a time of general sickness, when called out of bed for 
the fourth successive night, he fortified himself for his long 
ride with a glass of liquor, and returning, took off the chill 
with another. That was the beginning, and the rest was easy. 
Three years was the time covered by his descent, but to 
those who looked on and saw it, it appeared to have been 
accomplished in a day. Three-fourths of his practice was gone, 
his self-respect was fast going, and his hand was no longer 
steady or his diagnosis clear. 

Then came the change, or what was hoped would be a 
change. He came to the church, tired, hopeless and sick at 
heart, and something touched his life with a new hope. Almost 
before he considered what he was doing he had said, "I will 
trust God for strength to overcome," and in the courage of 
this new resolution he began the long fight. 

He seemed to succeed. He was seen no more in the bar- 
rooms. He walked erect, and dressed and looked as he had 
done in former years. His practice grew larger. His success 
seemed assured. His friends rejoiced, and sometimes referred 
to him to prove that a man could reform after a habit had 
strong hold of him. 

Then one night he came to a friend, and said, "It's no 
use. I must give it up. Some men can keep away from tempta- 
tion, but it is always before me. Morning and night the 
struggle is on, and the means of gratifying the desire are never 
absent. I have worked hard; I have prayed earnestly. But 
now and then, in a moment of exhaustion, my whole nature 
cries out for it, and something within me rises up and over- 
masters me, resolutions, prayers and all. Six months seems 
the limit. Twice in the last year I have been down. I had 
sense enough to lock myself up till I was sober. That was all. 
My attempt has been a miserable failure. I will not try again." 
His friend took his hand and said, "Is it possible that in 
the last year you have failed only twice? Three hundred and 
sixty- three days of success and only two of failure? Doctor, 
you can not afford to be discouraged after such a splendid 
beginning as that! You are succeeding! Come, let us thank 
God for your success thus far, and start in again." 

A year afterward the doctor told his friend that but for 
that word of help at that time he should have thrown himself 
into the lake. But that gave him some new estimate of his 



10 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



success and failure, and he sought help of God and began again. 
Will he fail again? God only knows. The man's spirit 
is willing, but his flesh is weak, and temptation is close at hand. 
But he is fighting the battle with brave heart and great courage. 
His periods of victory grow longer. If he never does better 
than he now is doing, the success he has attained is well worth 
the fight; and who shall say that the grace of God which has 
enabled him to triumph three hundred and sixty-three days in 
the year is not sufficient for the other two? — Youth's Com- 
panion. 

® <S> <S> 

Nobody Knows But Father. 

Nobody knows of the money it takes 

To keep the home together; 
Nobody knows of the debt it makes, 

Nobody knows — but father. 

Nobody's told that the boys need shoes, 

And the girls' hats with a feather; 
Nobody else old clothes must choose, 

Nobody — only father. 

Nobody hears that the coal and wood 

And flour's out together; 
Nobody else must make them good, 

Nobody — only father. 

Nobody's hand in the pocket goes 

So often, wondering whether 
There's any end to the wants of those 

Dependent — only father. 

Nobody thinks whence the money will come 

To pay the bills that gather ; 
Nobody feels so blue and glum, 

Nobody — only father. 

Nobody comes from the world's cruel storm 

To meet dear ones who gather 
Around with loving welcome warm, 

Nobody does — but father. 

Nobody knows of the home-life pure, 

Watched over by a mother, 
Where rest and bliss are all secure, 

Nobodv can — but father. — H. C. Dodge. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 11 



"A Happiness Shop." 

Let's open up a little shop, 

With happiness for sale, 
Shut down the sorrow factory, 

With all its dismal wail. 

We'll get a stock of cheerfulness, 

And pile it on the shelves, 
And just to start this cheery fad 

We'll buy a frock ourselves. 

Of patient, honest effort 

We'll make a fine display, 
And wrap a help-thought circular 

In each package sent away. 

— Pauline Johnson. 
<8> <8> <S> 
"Kept in at Recess." 

Will the congregation kindly step outside and go away a 
mile or two, while I growl? Many thanks; it is not often, nor 
even frequently, that I permit myself to indulge in a luxury 
so expensive as a large, underdone porterhouse grumble, and 
when I do, I like to have it all to myself. I have it in my 
mind — if the' reader will permit the designation, I do not know 
what else to call it — to reform something. I think that I 
usually do feel like reforming something or somebody — some- 
body else, you understand — whenever I am more than usually 
dissatisfied with myself. I do not know whether that is the 
way with the average reformer or not. But in the case of that 
somewhat unmanageable, hard-bitted, skittish fellow, myself, 
whom I understand, perhaps, as little as I do anybody else on 
this planet, I do know that when I am pretty well content with 
the way I am going and doing, all the rest of the world appears 
to be sitting in the "front room," waiting for to cry, "Come 
in!" the minute the millennium knocks, which may be the very 
next. But I am not in that happy frame this week. Things 
have gone awry with me. I discovered not less than forty- 
eight hours ago that my favorite doll was stuffed with sawdust. 
Then, through an unsuspected hole in my pocket, I had lost 
eight marbles — a carnelian taw, four chinas, and three v.hite 
alleys. These may seem small troubles to the philosopher, but 
I am no philosopher ; and these disappointments and losses 
weigh upon me just as heavily as the loss of two or three of 
the saws by which he supports existence would fall upon the 



12 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



philosopher. I do not expect the sympathy of the philosopher, 
anyhow. I find that I do not get along very well with him. 
He takes life too calmly; too placidly. None of these things, 
or any other things, move him. On my part, a great many 
things move me. I have been known to slam a door that would 
close itself gently, if I left it alone. I have been heard to 
tramp up a flight of stairs that were heavily padded and 
carpeted for the express purpose of muffling the footfall. I 
have answered my sister, the gentlest creature in the world, 
speaking to her across the dining table, in the tone of a patriot 
standing on the courthouse steps, declaring to his fellow- 
citizens, in far-sounding and mendacious phrase, what he would 
do for them in case he should be elected by their enlightened 
suffrages. You see, I am like to boil over if I am left on the 
fire too long. Taken off, I simmer down quite rapidly. I 
confess myself to be an unprofitable servant, and that I am not 
consumed is a wonder to me when I remember how many times 
I have been hauled over the coals. I have admitted enough to 
convince the reader that I do not possess the philosophical 
temperament. And now, having filled the greater portion of 
the book with the preface, let us pass on to the conclusion. In 
this way we will omit the book entirely, which will be a great 
relief to the reader. 

Will the schoolmaster please come to the platform and 
remove his jacket? And the schoolmistress, will she oblige me 
by taking her place at the other end of the desk and holding 
out her hand. Palm upward, please. That is correct. I hope 
it will not hurt either of you very much, but you must under- 
stand — oh, I know you do, I have heard you say so a hundred 
times — that the correction I am about to administer is for your 
own good, not for my pleasure. I assure you — I can prove it 
by your own testimony, and I know it to be true — that this will 
hurt me a great deal worse than it will you. Oh, many, many 
times worse. Hold up your head, sir, and do not wipe your 
eyes on your cuff in that manner; I haven't touched you yet. 
Listen to me, while I plait a new cracker in the end of this 
whip lash. If you pupils do not quit playing with my knout, 
fraying the lashes of it to fringe, so that it is too limp for any 
good when I have occasion to use it, I will make your parents 
pay for a new one. 

Not only a few weeks ago, but many times, have I visited 
the public schools of this land, here and there. And this thing 
have I observed, over and over, in this school and all the 
others : The room is not overly well ventilated ; a public school- 
room rarely is. This is not usually the fault of the teacher, 
but rather of the architect, or possibly the school directors. 
When the plan which was designed for the director's grand- 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. U 



father's barn is reduced for the schoolhouse, one can not expect 
much of a schoolhouse. And one is not disappointed. The 
pupils in this room, then, having breathed up all the air there 
is, and having then gone to work on each other's breaths 
and used them up, naturally become heavy-headed, stupid, 
asphyxiated. Here is a boy who can not remember his own 
name. As to geography, Texas is a vague blur on the map 
somewhere in Rhode Island, he thinks, but he wisely refuses 
to commit himself positively. In history, he remembers that 
Sam Houston wrote the Declaration of Independence, and that 
the dying words of Captain Lawrence were, "Don't give up 
the Alamo !" In arithmetic he makes a "dead flunk," striking 
his colors without firing a shot. What that boy needs is five, 
or ten, or fifteen minutes in the great, big, wide out-of-doors. 
He needs a run and wrestle, a jump and a yell — twenty-five 
or thirty yells, that will swell and expand his lungs like a 
national debt in war time. What does this blessed teacher do? 
No, no, don't try to speak ; I'm administering this knout. Keeps 
the boy in at recess. I've seen you do it; once, twice — if I had 
as many dollars as I've seen you keep boys and girls in at 
recess because they missed their lessons, I would buy a new 
pair of clothes every week in the year. 

Now, it does seem to me, that of all the antiquated, out- 
grown, senseless punishments laid upon the growing human 
race, this is the most — well, I was going to say imbecile, but 
I won't, because it is used by the most intelligent, the wisest, 
by all odds the most patient, and I will say, too, the gentlest 
people in America. I fancy the punishment is simply an illus- 
tration of the survival of the unfittest. We use it because our 
fathers used it, and they used it because, possibly, they didn't 
know any better. Why, it has been within the century, I think, 
that the custom of lashing the last man who shinned aloft 
when they were shortening sail was abolished in the English 
navy. Took the admiralty I don J t know how many years to 
learn that when men go aloft, one at a time, somebody has to 
be last. The custom was borrowed from the Chinese, who 
train their ducks to come aboard the boat promptly by the 
same method; the last duck up the plank is beaten all the way. 
It is worthy of the Chinese. And so this method of punishing 
a pupil for stupidity, by keeping him in the very atmosphere 
which engenders his stupidity, is a relic of a barbarous yesterday. 
It is on a par with the law of imprisonment for debt. If a 
man can't pay his debts, put him in jail, where he can never 
earn a cent, until he does pay. This foolish old world, slow of 
heart and brain to learn and quick to forget. 

Now, I am a man of mature years. I am still in school; 
never expect to graduate. But I have more control over my 



14 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



own movements than I used to posress. Some days the world 
turns round too fast; the slot machine which does what I am 
fond of calling my thinking for me is out of order, everything 
gets jumbled, dates, places, names, ideas; the books read back- 
ward, like a witch's charm; there is a perfect Sahara of blank 
paper on my desk, blank as my brain — and those pages must be 
filled before the sun goes down. What do I do? "Stay in at 
recess?" Stick to that muddled and muddling den of mine, 
groping about in a muddy pond of stupid confusion in the hope 
of grappling a thought by and by? Not much. I bolt out of 
the door, I make a bee line for the woods, I take a brisk walk, 
I run over to the village and mix up with men, I get away 
from the den and the inkwell and the typewriter. I — don't 
shake your head at me, I do, I tell you — I "play hookey" for 
half an hour, an hour, half ? day, maybe. Then I come back 
and that work simply does itself after I get it started. 

If I had my way, I would make it a misdemeanor to keep 
school children "in at recess." As I don't have my way — save 
only when I am alone, and even then I always get caught at 
it and have to smart for it — I can only growl. But I really 
would like to see this punishment banished from all schools. 
I don't believe it accomplishes anything. I believe it aggravates 
the evils it is intended to correct. Let's away with it. Sub- 
stitute for it some national punishment. 

And I believe it has a bad effect on the pupils. It has on 
some boys, I am positive. There was a boy went to "our 
school" forty years ago, a good boy, too, a real good, loving, 
gentle, earnest, ambitious boy. He used to keep tally of the 
recesses he lost by being "kept in." Then, when they amounted 
to a half day, this boy, good and gentle, and in the main 
obedient, would whoop off to the lake, "play hookey," and fish 
all day, and so "make it up," he used to say. And I'd do it 
again under the same circumstances. — Robert J. Burdette, in 
Journal of Education. 

<$> <» <S> 



"One ship drives east, and another west. 
With the self-same winds that blow; 
'Tis the set of the sails and not the gales, 
That decides the way they go. 



Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate, 

As we voyage along through life; 
'Tis the set of the soul that determines the goal, 

And not the calm or the strife." 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 15 



Anti-Dismals. 

Good Morning. 

Good morning, Brother Sunshine; 

Good morning, Sister Song; 
I beg your humble pardon 

If you've waited very long. 
I thought I heard you rapping; 

To shut you out were sin. 
My heart is standing open; 
Won't you 

walk 
right 
in? 

Good morning, Brother Gladness ; 

Good morning, Sister Smile; 
They told me you were coming, 

So I waited on a while. 
I'm lonesome here without you; 

A weary while it's been. 
My heart is standing open; 
Won't you 

walk 
right 
in? 

Good morning, Brother Kindness ; 

Good morning, Sister Cheer; 
I heard you were out calling, 

So I waited for you here. 
Some way I keep forgetting 

I have to toil and spin 
When you are my companions; 
Won't you 

walk 
right 
in? 
— /. W. Foley in New York Sun. 

<S> <$> <$> 

"Old Gordon Graham" says: "Some men think that rules 
should be made of cast iron; I think that they should be made 
of rubber, so that they can be stretched to fit any particular 
case and then spring back into shape again. The really 
important part of a rule is the exception to it." 



16 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



Twenty Years Ago. 

I wandered to the hotel, Tom, 

And stood before the bar, 
Called for a glass of lemonade 

And smoked a bad cigar. 
No one was there to greet me, Tom, 

And few were left to know 
When we were on the sporting turf 

Some twenty years ago. 

The barkeeper is a younger man, 

The one who used to sell 
Corrosive tanglefoot then 

Is roasting now in well ! 

The other wears a diamond stud, 

His hair is combed quite low, 
And looks just like the one we knew 

Some twenty years ago. 

Old soaks called for booze, Tom, 

With the same old grin, 
While others burned their throats 

With what I think was gin. 
And women stood beside the door, 

Their faces seamed with woe; 
And wept just as they used to do 

Some twenty years ago. 

I asked about old-time friends, 

Those cherished sporting men. 
Some were in the poorhouse, Tom, 

And some were in the pen. 
The one we liked the best, Tom, 

The hangman laid him low; 
The world was much the same, dear Tom, 

Some twenty years ago. 

I asked about that wealthy chap 

Who'd never drink alone, 
And always claimed that he, for one, 

Could always hold his own. 
He perished with the jim-jams out 

In the cold and snow, 
Ah! Few survive who used to booze, 

Some twenty years ago. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. V 



New crowds line up along the bar 

And call for crimson ink; 
New hands are trembling as they pour 

The stuff they oughtn't drink. 
But the same old watchword rings, 

"This round's on me, you know," 
The same old cry of doom we heard 

Some twenty years ago. 

I wandered to the churchyard, Tom, 

And there I saw the graves 
Of those who used to drown themselves 

In red fermented waves. 
And there were women sleeping, 

Where grass and daisies grow, 
Who wept and died of broken hearts 

Some twenty years ago. 

And there were graves where children slept — 

Have slept for many a year, 
Forgetful of the woes that marked 

Their fitful sojourn here. 
And 'neath a tall, white monument, 

In death there lieth low, 
The man who used to sell the booze, 

Some twenty years ago. 



-Exchange. 



<S> <$> <$> 



Mother O'Mine. 

If I were hanged on highest hill, 

Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine ! 
I know whose love would follow still, 

Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine ! 

If I were drowned in the deepest sea, 

Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine ! 
I know whose tears would come down to me, 

Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine ! 

If I were cursed of body and soul, 

Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine ! 
I know whose prayers would make me whole ! 

Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine ! 

— Rudyard Kipling. 



18 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



Prayer. 

One reason we do not pray better, I suppose, is that we are 
afraid of being answered. It is a very serious thing to pray; 
because we may be taken at our word. We must consent that 
God should order the answer For instance: I pray in the 
morning that God will make me very useful to-day; it is a 
hazardous prayer. I may be taken at my word. Within an 
hour I may be called to very great usefulness, that will take 
a hundred dollars from my bank account. Now, if I don't 
want to take that money, if it is called for, I have made a 
mistake in my prayer. Let us say what we mean. — Alexander 
McKenzie. 

<$> <S> <$> 

Clear the Way. 

Men of thought ! be up and stirring, 

Night and day; 
Sow the seed, withdraw the curtain, 

Clear the way! 

Men of action, aid and cheer them, . 

As ye may ! 
There's a fount about to stream, 
There's a light about to beam, 
There's a warmth about to glow, 
There's a flower about to blow; 

There's a midnight blackness changing 

Into gray ! 
Men of thought and men of action, 

Clear the way ! 

Once the welcome light has broken 

Who shall say 
What the un imagined glories 

Of the day? 

What the evil that shall perish 

In its ray? 
Aid the dawning, tongue, and pen; 
Aid it, hopes of honest men; 
Aid it, paper, aid it, type, 
Aid it, for the hour is ripe; 
And our earnest must not slacken 

Into play. 
Men of thought and men of action, 

Clear the way ! 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 19 



Lo ! a cloud about to vanish 

From the day; 
And a brazen wrong to crumble 

Into clay. 
Lo ! the Right's about to conquer, 

Clear the way! 

With the Right shall many more 
Enter, smiling, at the door; 
With the giant Wrong shall fall 
Many others great and small 
That for ages loner have held us 

For their prey. 
Men of thought and men of action, 

Clear the way! 

— Charles Mackay. 
<$> <8> <$> 

Boil it Down. 

If you've got a thought that's happy, 

Boil it down. 
Make it short and crisp and snappy, 

Boil it down. 
When your brain its coin has minted, 
Down the page your pen has sprinted, 
If you want your effort printed, 

Boil it down. 

Take out every surplus letter, 

Boil it down. 
Fewer syllables the better, 

Boil it down. 
Make your meaning plain ; express it 
So we'll know, not merely guess it, 
Then, my friend, ere you address it, 

Boil it down. 

Boil out the extra trimmings, 

Boil it down. 
Skim it well, then skim the skimmings, 

Boil it down. 
When you're sure 'twould be a sin to 
Put another sentence into, 
Send it on, and we'll begin to 

Boil it down. 

— Selected. 



20 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



His Touch. 

M,y hands were filled with many things 

That I did precious hold, 
As any treasure of a king's — \ 

Silver, or gems, or gold. 
The Master came and touched my hands 

(The scars were in His own), 
And at His feet my treasures sweet 

Fell shattered one by one. 
"I must have emptied hands," said He, 
"Wherewith to work my works through thee." 

My hands were stained with marks of toil, 

Defiled with dust of earth; 
And I my work did ofttimes soil, 

And render little worth. 
The Master came and touched my hands 

(And crimson were His own), 
But when amazed, on mine I gazed, 

Lo ! every stain was gone. 
"I must have cleansed hands," said He, 
"Wherewith to work my works through thee." 

My hands were growing feverish, 
And cumbered with much care! 
Trembling with haste and eagerness, 

Nor folded oft in prayer. 
The Master came and touched my hands 

(With healing in His own), 
And calm and still to do His will 
They grew — the fever gone. 
"I must have quiet hands," said He, 
"Wherewith to work my works for me." 

My hands were strong in fancied strength, 

But not in power Divine, 
And bold to take up tasks at length, 

That were not His but mine. 
The Master came and touched my hands 

(And might was in His own) ! 
But mine since then have powerless been, 
Save as His are laid thereon. 
"And it is only thus," said He, 
"That I can work my works through thee." 

— Selected. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 21 



The Power of Habit. 

"Habit is a cable" says an old motto; "we weave a thread 
of it each day; by and by it becomes so strong we can not 
break it." 

A forcible illustration of this point came to us the other 
day in reading an account of the adventures of an expedition 
sent to the Lake of the Woods district for making determina- 
tions in longitude. As the country there is a succession of 
morasses, it was impracticable to do this work save when the 
ground was frozen. It consisted in transporting a set of 
chronometers running on Greenwich time from station to 
station, and in determining at each place the local time, a 
comparison of the two systems, giving the exact longitude of 
each point. 

When the work was nearly completed the party were over- 
taken by a terrible storm, and one by one the less robust 
members sank down, preferring to sleep the final sleep rather 
than to continue farther on what seemed but a hopeless search 
for the camp. The leader, a graduate of West Point, each 
time aroused them up and urged them on. Night came; even 
the dogs which drew their sledges refused to go farther, and 
the intrepid commander, with freezing fingers^ wrote a message 
to friends in his note book, wrapped his cloak about him and 
sank down beside his sleeping companions — his duty done. But 
amidst the chill and stupor came the call for one more service. 
He had forgotten to wind his chronometers, and if they were 
allowed to run down all his work would be lost. With diffi- 
culty he arose, found his way to the sledges, wound and care- 
fully covered the chronometers, hoping that the rescuing party, 
which would surely be sent out, would find them not stilled, 
though all heart throbs should have ceased. 

Happily, the rescuers came in time to save not only the 
time, but the entire party. But the rigid discipline regarding 
the importance of duty was so strongly engrafted into his 
character that it was paramount, even in the face of death. 

Neatness, accuracy, thoroughness, punctuality, honesty, in 
fact, all the elements .which go to make up true culture — how 
quickly they succumb to habit. If it be for good, all is well; 
but if the reverse, they grow like bad weeds. Hence the impor- 
tance of insisting on each individual's best efforts at all times. 
The loosely stated problem leads to a carelessly prepared 
examination paper; and this to omissions which render a deci- 
sion of "Incorrect" inevitable. Aim to attain perfection. — 
Bessie L. Putnam. 

<S> <$> <$> 

Who shall hear the voice of opportunity? In most cases, 
and to most men, it is the still, small voice of duty. 



22 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



Smiling. 

When the weather suits you not, 

Try smiling. 
When your coffee isn't hot, 

Try smiling. 
When your neighbors don't do right 
Or your relatives all fight, 
Sure it's hard, but then you might 

Try smiling. 
Doesn't change the things, of course, 

Just smiling; 
But it can not make them worse — 

Just smiling. 
And it seems to help your case, 
Brightens up a gloomy place; 
Then it sort o' rests your face — - 

Just smiling. 

<$> <*> <$> 

The inner side of every cloud 

Is bright and shining; 
I therefore turn my clouds about, 
And always wear them inside out— 

To show the lining ! 

"The difference betwixt the optimist 
And pessimist is droll; 
The optimist sees the doughnut, 
The pessimist the hole." 

<$> <S> <$> 

Joy is not in things ; it is in us. — Charles Wagner. 

<S> «> <$> 

"Nay, never falter: no great deed is done 
By falterers who ask for certainty. 
No good is certain, but the steadfast mind, 
The undivided will to seek the good: 
'Tis that compels the elements, and wrings 
A human music from the indifferent air. 
The greatest gift the hero leaves his race 
Is to have been a hero." 

<$><$><§> 

It is not where you are, but what you are, that determines 
your happiness. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 23 



Opportunity. 

[A few years before he died Senator Ingalls penned this 
now famous sonnet to "Opportunity," from a soul that was, 
indeed, fuller of poetry than of politics.] 

Master of human destinies am I ! 

Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait. 

Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate 

Deserts and seas remote, and, passing by 

Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late, 

I knock unbidden once at every gate ! 

If sleeping, wake — if feasting, rise before 

I turn away. It is the hour of fate, 

And they who follow me reach every state 

Mortals desire, and conquer every foe 

Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate, 

Condemned to failure, penury and woe, 

Seek me in vain and uselessly implore. 

I answer not, and I return no more. 

<$> <S> <$> 

Opportunity. 

[An answer to Ingall's poem on "Opportunity."] 

They do me wrong who say I come no more 
When once I knock and fail to find you in; 

For every day I stand outside your door, 

And bid you awake, and ride to fight and win. 

Wail not for precious chances passed away, 

Weep not* for golden ages on the wane ! 
Each night I burn the records of the day; 

At sunrise every soul is born again. 

Laugh like a boy at the splendors that have sped, 
To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb; 

My judgments seal the past dead with its dead, 
But never bind a moment yet to come. 

Though deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep ; 

I lend my arm to all who say, "I can." 
No shamefaced outcast ever sank so deep 

But yet might rise and be again a man. 

— Walter Mdlone. 



24 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 

Opportunity Speaks. 

Yes, I am Opportunity; 

But say, young man, don't wait for me 

To come to you ; you buckle down 

To win your crown, and work with head 

And hear' and hands, as does the man 

Who understands that those who wait, 

Expecting some reward from fate, or luck, to call it so — 

Sit always in the "way back row," and yet 

You must not let me get away when I show up. 

The golden cup is not for him who stands 

With folded hands, expecting me 

To serve his inactivity. I serve the active mind, 

The seeing eye, the ready hand 

That grasps me passing by, and takes from me 

The good I hold for every spirit 

Strong and bold. He does not wait 

On fate who seizes me, 

For I am fortune, luck and fate, 

The corner stone of what is great 

In man's accomplishment. But I am none of these 

To him who does not seize ; I must be caught, 

If any good is wrought out of the treasures I possess. 

O, yes, I am Opportunity; 

I'm great; I'm sometimes late, 

But do not wait for me ; 

Work on, watch on, 

Good hands, good heart and some day you will see — 

Out of your efforts rising — Opportunity — Selected. 

<e> <s> <$> 

There is another famous poem on "Opportunity," which 
also tells the lesson. It is Edward Rowland Sill's: 
This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream: 
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain, 
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged 
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords 
Shocked upon swords and shields. A Prince's banner 
Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes. 
A craven hung along the battle's edge 
And thought: "Had I a sword of keener steel— - 
That blue blade that the Finn's son bears — but this 
Blunt thing — " he snapt and flung it from his hand, 
And, lowering, crept away and left the field. 
Then came the King's son, wounded, sore bestead, 
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword, 
Hilt buried in the dry and trodden sand, 
And ran and snatched it, and with battle shout 
Lifted afresh, he hewed his enemy down 
And saved a great cause that heroic day. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 25 



Opportunity. 

- In one of the old Greek cities there stood long ago a statue. 
Every trace of it has vanished now. But there is still in ex- 
istance an epigram which gives us an excellent description of it, 
and as we read the words we can surely discover the lesson 
which those wise old Greeks meant that the statue should teach 
to every passerby. The epigram is in the form of a conversation 
between a traveller and the statue: 

"What is thy name, O statue?" 
"I am called Opportunity." 
"Who made thee ?" 
"Lysippus." 

"Why art thou on thy toes?" 
"To show that I stay but a moment." 
"Why hast thou wings on thy feet?" 
"To show how quickly I pass by." 
"But why is thy hair so long on thy forehead?" 
"That men can seize me when they meet me." 
"Why, then, is thy head so bald behind?" 
"To show that when I have once passed I cannot be 
caught." 

<$> <S> <♦> 

Character is Success. 

"There is a vast difference between making a living and 
making a life. Capital is not what a man has, but what a man 
is. Character is capital. Character is success. Better be a 
man than merely a millionaire. Find out what groove you are 
intended to fill. It is absurd to bend designs where your genius 
least inclines. Every man is born with his position in him, 
and it is his first business to find out the bent of his genius. 

"Stick to one thing. To sn eed you must be unanimous 
with yourself. This is the age Of the specialist. 

"There is no secret in success. To succeed you must do 
as you would to get in at a door through a crowd — hold your 
ground and push hard. Luck waits for something to turn up. 
Pluck turns up something. The story of success is the story 
of poor boys. Don't worry about your salary. Increase your 
skill. Men who never do more than they are paid for never 
keep up a full head of steam. Better to boil over than not to 
boil at all. The men who never make mistakes are the men 
who never do anything. Don't follow the crowd. Assert your 
own individuality. Dare to be singular. 

"Mind your own business. The reason those people succeed 
so well who mind their own business is because there is so little 
competition." 



26 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



Half Way Home. 

Do you remember the wayside nook 
Under the lee of a laurel ledge 
With a wild dog-rose in the blackberry hedge, 
And an elm that bent like a shepherd's crook, 
With a buttercup border about its edge — 
Where we stopped to rest in the shadows cool, 
Half way home from school? 

The brook sang on with a seashell croon, 

To the mermaid ferns with their long green hair; 

And the sounds of the summer were in the air, 

In the yellow heart of the afternoon. 

O days of pleasure ! O days of Tune ! 

What after days can with you compare? 

What draughts with the draughts from the sun-flecked pool 

Half way home from school? 

Friend, dear friend! Let us turn aside 

In the road that leads from the schoolhouse door; 

We must be half way home or more, 

Half way to the dew-fall and eventide, 

Let us stop in the shade where our paths divide, 

In the sweet old way that we did of yore, 

And we'll talk it over, the way we've come, 

Resting half way home. 

— Emma Herrick Weed, in Indianapolis News. 

The Futility of Noises. 

'Twas a wise fellow who said: "When you fight or work 
don't make a fuss. The hen cackles after she has laid the 
egg. The noise and sizzle of the locomotive are not force. 
All force is silent. The heehaw of the mule may startle you, 
but it is not so dangerous as his hind legs. Bear in mind that 
it is an empty wagon that rattles most when in motion. The 
noise of a drum is due to the fact that there is nothing in it."— 
Joliet Signal. 

Search thine own heart ; whaf paineth thee 
In others — in thyself may be. 
All dust is frail — all flesh is weak — 
Be thou the trueman thou dost seek. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 27 



The Rain. 

At last the rain ! 

It fell upon the just and the unjust with biblical impartiality. 
It came down upon the city that had sniffed, eaten and dreamed 
dust for so long. 

The loafers on the steps of the city hall drew their feet up 
out of the wet and sighed contentedly. 

High up, in the window of a tenement block, a woman's 
figure formed a background for a child that her strong bared 
arm half protected. The little one had been almost stripped 
for its comfort, and the fair baby shoulders showed white 
against the mother's dark dress as they both crowded ' to the 
opening for the rain-cooled air. Suddenly the child turned its 
grateful little face from the rain to its mother, and, grasping 
her strong arm with its tiny ones, kissed it — for mother surely 
brought the rain. 

Farther on, where the heat and the noise of the elevated 
trains rushing by made the little room stifling, a sick man lay. 
The cot was drawn up to the window and his head rested, in 
mute thanksgiving, upon the raindrops on the sill. 

Here a negress, with head bound up in white bandages, 
leaned against the casing, while beside her a pickaninny in a 
scant white dress stretched its little black arms out into the rain 
and danced up and down in delight. 

Down below two truck horses rested their heads on each 
other in friendly enjoyment of the storm. The blue parasol-like 
protectors on their heads had drank so much rain they were 
tipsy and tilted at such ridiculous angles as to show they con- 
sidered themselves off duty. 

Three ragamuffins waded joyously in the inky stream that 
rushed down the gutter. 

Out in the market garden districts the hucksters and their 
families gather-d at the doors of their little homes and in 
their hearts blessed the rain, while the wilted vegetables slowly 
lifted themselves and gave promise of going to market. 

New life ran through the business center of the city. 

Men pulled the handkerchiefs from about their wilted collars 
and were surprised to find how many signs of returning pros- 
perity they had overlooked in the last few days. — Chicago News. 



"I expect to pass through this world but once. If, therefore, 
there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do for 
any fellow-being, let me do it now. Let me not deter or neglect 
it, for I shall not pass this way again." — Emerson. 



28 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



The Great Guest Comes. 

While the cobbler mused, there passed his pane a beggar 
drenched by the driving rain : he called him in from the stony 
street and gave him shoes for his bruised feet. The beggar 
went, and there came a crone her face with wrinkles of sorrow 
sown; a bundle of faggots bowed her back, and she was spent 
with the wrench and rack. He gave her his loaf and steadied 
her load as she took her way on the weary road. Then to his 
door came a little chil'd, lost and afraid in the world so wild, 
in the big, dark world. Catching it up, he gave it the milk 
in the waiting cup, and led it home to its mother's arms, out 
of the reach of the world's alarms. The day went down in the 
crimson west, and with it the hope of the blessed Guest; and 
Conrad sighed as the world turned gray: "Why is it, Lord, 
that your feet delay? Did you forget that this was the day?" 
Then, soft, in the silence a voice was heard: "Lift up your 
heart, for I kept my word. Three times I came, to your friendly 
door, three times my shadow was on your floor; I was the 
beggar with bruised feet; I was the woman you gave to eat; 
I was the child on the homeless street." — Edwin Markham. 



<S> <S> <S> 

If I Should Die To-night. 

If I should die to-night, 
And you should come to my cold corpse and say, 
Weeping and heartsick o'er my lifeless clay — 

If I should die to-night, 
And you should come in deepest grief and woe 
And say, "Here's that ten dollars that I owe," 
I might arise in my large white cravat 
And say, "What's that?" 

If I should die to-night, 
And you should come to my cold corpse and kneel 
Clasping my bier to show the grief you feel — 

If I should die to-night, 
And you should come to me and there and then 
Just even hint at paying me that ten, 
I might rise the while, 
But I'd drop dead again. 

— Ben King. 

<$> <8> <S> 

Nothing impure or wrong can be of use in the service of God. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 29 



An Aching Void. 

She stands in the cool of the evening gray, 

With her bronze-brown eyes alight, 
She has worked with her hands and her head all day, 

And at last the room looks right. 

She has changed the desk and the folding screen, 

She has moved the chairs with glee, 
And the little tea-table sits serene 

Where the sofa used to be. 

What joy can come to a woman's soul 

Like this — complete ! profound ! 
What music vie with the casters' roll, 

As she moves these chairs around! 

She may list the sound of her first-born's cry, 

She may lean to a lover's kiss, 
She may sing with the angels by-and-by — 

But never a joy like this. 

He * * * * * * 



But her husband's bliss isn't unalloyed, 

And a dreadful swear swears he, 
When he finds (crash! crash!) there's an aching void 

Where the sofa used to be ! 

— Louise Edgar, in Penny Magazine. 

<$> <$> <S> 

Though critics may bow to art 

And I am its own true lover 
It is not art, but heart — 

Which wins the wide world over. 

<$> <♦> <S> 

Lead lives of love, that others, who 

Behold your lives may kindle, too, 

With love, and cast their lots with you. 

<e> <$> <♦> 

Four things a man must learn to do 
If he would make his record true: 
To think without confusion, clearly; 
To love his fellow-men sincerely; 
To act from honest motives purely; 
'"To trust in God and heaven securely. 



30 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



Music. 

All music is what awakes from you, when you are reminded by 

the instruments, 
It is not the violins and the cornets — it is not the oboe nor the 

beating drums, nor the notes of the baritone singer singing 

his sweet romanza — nor those of the men's chorus, nor 

those of the women's chorus, 
It is nearer and farther than they. — Walt Whitman. 

<S> 3> <£ 

Come, blow on your horn, 

Oh, little Boy Blue, 
For now no one else 

Will blow it for you. 

And those who to-day 

Don't blow their own horn, 
Are likely to find 

A condition forlorn. 

<♦> <♦> <$> 

The Poets at a House-Party. 

By Carolyn Wells. 

\A modern mortal having inadvertently stumbled in upon a 
house-party of poets given on Mount Olympus, being called 
upon to justify his presence there by writing a poem, offered a 
limerick. Whereupon each poet scoffed, and the mortal, 
offended, challenged them to do better with the same theme.'] 

The Limerick. 

A scholarly person named Finck 
Went mad in the effort to think 

Which were graver misplaced, 

To dip pen in his paste, 
Or dip his paste-brush in the ink. 

Omar Khayyam's Version. 

Stay, fellow-traveler, let us stop and think, 
Pause and reflect on the abysmal brink; 

Say, would you rather thrust your pen in paste, 
Or dip your paste-brush carelessly in ink? 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 31 



Rudyard Kipling's Version. 

Here is a theme that is worthy of our cognizance, 
A theme of great importance and a question for your ken; 

Would you rather — stop and think well — 

Dip your paste-brush in your ink-well, 

Or in your pesky pasting-pot immerse your inky pen ? 

Walt Whitman's Version. 

Hail, Camerados ! 

I salute you, 

Also I salute the sewing-machine, and the flour-barrel, and the 

feather-duster. 
What is an aborigine, anyhow? 
I see a paste-pot. 
Ay, and a well of ink. 
Well, Well! 
Which shall I do? 
Ah, the immortal fog. 
What am I myself 
But a meteor 
In the fog? 

Chaucer's Version. 

A mayde ther ben, a wordy one and wyse, 
Who wore a paire of gogles on her eyes. 
O'er theemes of depest thogt her braine she werked, 
Nor ever any knoty problemme sherked. 
Yette when they askt her if she'd rather sinke 
Her penne in payste or eke her brushe in inke, 
"Ah," quo' the canny mayde, "now wit ye wel, 
I'm wyse enow to know — too wyse to tel." 



Henry James' Version. 

She luminously wavered, and I tentatively inferred that she 
would soon perfectly reconsider her not altogether unobvious 
course. Furiously, though with a tender, ebbing similitude, 
across her mental consciousness stole a reculmination of all 
the truths she had ever known concerning, or even remotely 
relating to, the not-easily fathomed qualities of paste and ink. 
So she stood, focused in an intensity of soul-quivers, and I, all 
unrelenting, waited, though of a dim uncertainty whether, after 
all, it might not be only a dubitant problem. 



32 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



Swinburne's Version. 

Shall I dip, shall I dip it, Dolores, 

This luminous paste-brush of thine? 
Shall I sully its white-breasted glories, 

Its fair, foam-flecked figure divine? 
Or shall I — abstracted, unheeding — 

Swish swirling this pen in mv haste, 
And, deaf to thy pitiful pleading, 

Just jab it in paste? 

Eugene Field's Version. 

See the Ink Bottle on the Desk! It is full of Nice Black 
Ink. Why, the Paste-Pot is there, Too. Let us watch Papa 
as he sits down to write. Oh, he is going to paste a Second- 
hand Stamp on a Letter. See, he has dipped his Brush in the 
Ink by Mistake. Oh, what a Funny Mistake ! Now, although 
it is Winter, we may have to Endure the Heated Terror. 

Stephen Crane's Version. 

I stood upon a church spire, 

A slender, pointed spire, 

And I saw 

Ranged in solemn row before me, 

A paste-pot and an ink-pot. 

I held in my either hand 

A pen and a brush. 

Ay, a pen and a brush. 

Now this is the strange part; 

I stood upon a church spire, 

A slender, pointed spire, 

Glad, exultant, 

Because 

The choice was mine ! 

Ay, mine ! 

As I stood upon a church spire, 

A slender, pointed spire. 

<S> <S> <♦> 

A commonplace life, we say and we sigh; 

But why should we sigh as we say? 

The commonplace sun in the commonplace sky 

Makes up the commonplace day. 

The moon and the stars are commonplace things, 

The flower that blooms and the bird that sings; 

But sad were the world, and dark were our lot, 

If flowers failed to bloom and the sun shone not. 

— Housekeeping. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 33 



Success. 

I do not know how other people view 

The prize which men seek after, called Success; 
But unto me it seems the standard true 
By which to judge is from the good we do 
In giving unto others happiness. 

'Tis not in gaining wealth, or place, or name; 

'Tis not in selfish seeking for renown. 
For many are there whom the world gives fame 
Whose lives are justly subject unto blame, 

Because they rose by trampling others down. 

The man who loves his wife and family, 
Who strives to comfort and protect his own, 

Who does no other soul an injury, 

Who fills his life with deeds of charity, 
Is a success, although he dies unknown. 

The man who follows and who teaches right, 

Avoiding jealousy and needless strife, 
Who seeks to know the truth and spread the light, 
Has won a crown of honor in God's sight, 

Although in humble station all his life. 

The man who strives to elevate his kind, 

Who teaches liberty and brotherhood, 
Who brings new truth into the human mind, 
Does well although his motives are maligned, 

Although his efforts are misunderstood. 

We follow the wrong standard. If we try 

To gather wealth, or wear the laurel wreath, 
It should not be alone to gratify 
Our selfishness, but from our station high 
To scatter blessings upon those beneath. 

— Denver Post. 
<S> <$> <§> 

Rest is not quitting 

The busy career; 
Rest is the fitting 

Of self to one's sphere. 

"Ideas are the refined gold of thoughts passed through the 
crucible of reason." — Durbin Ward. 



34 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



The Children of Earth. 

Down by the sea on a summer day 

I doze and dream while the children'play, 

Gleefully heaping their hills of sand, 

Calling them palaces, high and grand. 

A clamshell serves for the great front door, 

And the walk is a bit of a broken oar, 

While plate and platter and bowl and cup 

Are polished pebbles the sea brings up. 

And king and queen in their royal state 
Pass in and out through a seaweed gate; 
And lord and lady ride to and fro, 
Till a far voice calls, "It is time to go." 
To gems and jewels and palaces tall 
They bid farewell, and they leave them all; 
While the tide comes laughingly up the bay, 
And the sand-made palace is washed away. 

Deep in the city I see the men 

Playing the childish games again; 

Building a palace of brick and stone, 

And playfully calling it all their own. 

The walls are laid with the cares of wealth, 

And the roof is patched with their broken health; 

And plate and platter and bowl and cup 

Are polished trinkets their toil brings up. 

And king and queen in their royal state 
Pass in and out through a golden gate; 
And lord and lady ride to and fro 
Till a far voice calls, "It is time to go." 
From gems and jewels and palace tall 
They turn away, and they leave them all; 
And Time looks on through a thousand years 
And the man-made palace — it disappears. 
Nixon Waterman, in L. A. W. "Bulletin and Good 
Roads." 

<S> <S> <$> 

We all of us complain of the- shortness of time, and yet 
have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives are 
spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing that 
we ought to do; we are always complaining our days are few, 
and acting as though there would be no end of them. — Seneca. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 35 



I Want to Give to Others. 

[When Daniel S. Ford, the owner and builder of The 
Youth's Companion, died, there was found upon his desk the 
poem which we print below. It was worn from much handling, 
and may have been one source of the inspiration from which 
he drew the health fulness, the sweetness r.nd purity of the 
great paper that has been such a factor of civilization and 
education for youthful America. The words picture his daily 
life.] 

The bread that bringeth strength I want to give, 
The water pure that bids the thirsty live ; 
I want to help the fainting day by day: 
I'm sure I shall not pass again this way. 

I want to give the oil of joy for tears, 

The faith to conquer crowding doubts and fears. 

Beauty for ashes may I give alway; 

I'm sure I shall not pass again this way. 

I want to give good measure running o'er, 
And into angry hearts I want to pour 
The answer soft that turneth wrath away : 
I'm sure I shall not pass again this way. 

I want to give to others hope and faith; 
I want to do all that the Master saith; 
I want to live aright from day to day: 
I'm sure I shall not pass again this way. 

<♦> <$> <*> 

Conscience and Remorse. 

"Good-bye," I said to my conscience — 

"Good-bye for aye and aye." 
And I put her hands off harshly, 

And turned my face away; 
And conscience, smitten sorely 

Returned not from that day. 

But a time came when my spirit 

Grew weary of its pace; 
And I cried: "Come back, my conscience, 

For I long to see thy face !" 
But conscience cried: "I can not; 

Remorse sits in my place !" 

— Paul Laurence Dunbar. 



36 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



The Sekrit uv Success. 

Yer agoin out in the world, my boy, 

So lissen a bit ter me, 
I'll tell ye a rool that'll help ye more 

Then enny ye iver see — 
I kant remember the words exact, 

But this is the since uv it, Jim — 
What ye want uv a feller ter du fur you 

You've gut for ter du fur him. 

****** a|e 

Speak wel as ye kan uv yer feller man, 

Or else du not speak at all; 
Don't think yer own varchews air ollus grate 

An hizzen air ollus small; 
It don't kost nothin ter say a good word, 

An peple all like it, Jim; 
If you want a feller ter speak well uv you, 

You've gut ter speak wel uv him. 

In evry man's hart there's a tender spot, 

An so, if ye want ter win im, 
Jest giv it a poke with a word uv praise, 

An dont say a thing agin im; 
No matter how little he liked ye wonst, 

Yer jedgment will please him, Jim, 
If ye want a feller to presheate you, 

You've gut ter presheate him. 

Be tru ter the ones that konfide in you, 

At evry time an place; 
An don't say a thing behind a man's back, 

Ye wouldn't afore his face; 
When friends have forsook ye, an slander's tung 

Is pinted again ye, Jim — 
If ye want a feller ter be tru ter you, 

You've gut ter be true ter him. 

There's no use a-livin onles ye have friends, 

For ye kant git on without um; 
An the number ye have on yerself depends 

An how ye behave about um ; 
If ye want ter be happy an prosprus, tu, 

I'll giv ye the sekrit, Jim — 
What ye want uv a feller ter du fur you 

Stan reddy fur ter du fur him. 

— Random Rimes, by N. W. Rand. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 37 



Wounded. 

God knows I fought; yet vainly fought. 

I sometimes fain would die 
And sleep, as only dead men sleep, 

Beneath His pitying eye. 
Yet rather would I live to fight 

And, fighting grandly, win; 
I do not ask for wealth and ease, 

But this— O God! O Sin! 

And is it but the fools and - 'eak 

Who yield, and wounded lie? 
Nay, but the noblest souls sometimes 

Fight, lose, lie down to die; 
For with the higher sense of life — 

Of beauty, bliss, and all — 
Come armed temptations never known 

To lives that creep and crawl. 
Then, great Physician, guiding still 

The crying weak along, 
Forget not, but be merciful 

Unto Thy wounded strong. 

— Albert Englebert. 
<S> <$> <$> 

The Blind Weaver. 

A blind boy stood beside the loom 

And wove a fabric. To and fro 
Beneath his firm and steady touch 

He made the busy shuttle go. 

And oft the teacher passed that way 
And gave the colors, thread by thread; 

But by the boy the pattern fair 
Was all unseen. Its hues were dead. 

'How can you weave?" we pitying cried. 

The blind boy smiled. "I do my best; 
I make the fabric firm and strong, 

And one who sees does all the rest." 

Oh, happy thought ! Beside life's loom 

We blindly strive our best to do; 
And He who marked the pattern out 

And holds the threads, will make it true. 

— Beth Day, in Youth's Companion. 



38 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



O My Lir Brack Lam'! 

O my HI' brack lam', yo' face wuz dahk,- 
But yo' eyes dey shine laik a firefly spahk, 
An* yo' voice is sweet ez a cornfiel' lahk, 
O my lil' brack lam* ! 

Yo' face wuz dahk, but yo' soul wuz w'ite, 
An' yo' spirit is pure as de hebenly Light, 
An' yo' wuz my darlin', my heart's delight, 
My lam', my lil' brack lam' ! 

O my lil' brack lam', the night wuz dahk, 
An' a voice keep callin' an' callin', Hahk ! 
An' it leab yo' silen' an' col' an' stahk, 
O my lil' brack lam' ! 

For Deaf ride by in de win' dat night, 
An' he carry yo' off in de gray dawnlight, 
Laik yo' wuz his darlin', his heart's delight, 
My lam', my lil' brack lam' ! 

O my lil' brack lam', de way wuz dahk, 
But de dear Lawd make it a shinin' mahk, 
An' de lamp of His lub wuz a hebenly spahk, 
O my lil' brack lam' ! 

He wanted a flower fer His garden bright — 
Des' a lil' brack bud — so yo' bloom en His sight, 
An' yo' am His darlin', His heart's delight, 
My lam', my lil' brack lam' ! 

— Ethel Maude Cohort. 

<$> <$> <S> 
My Symphony. 

To live content with small means. 

To seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather 
than fashion. 

To be worthy, not respectable and wealthy, not rich. 

To study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly. 

To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open 
heart. 

To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry 
never. 

In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, 
grow up through the common. 

This is to be my symphony. — William Henry Channing. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 39 



The Questioner. 

I called the boy to my knee one day, 

And I said: "You're just past four; 
Will you laugh in that same light-hearted way 

When you've turned, say, thirty more?" 
Then I thought of a past I'd fain erase — 

More clouded skies than blue — 
And I anxiously peered in his upturned face 

For it seemed to say : 
"Did you?" 

I touched my lips to his tiny own 

And I said to the boy : "Heigh, ho ! 
Those Hos are as sweet as the hay, new-mown; 

Will you keep them always so?" 
Then back from those years came a rakish song — 

With a ribald jest or two — 
And I gazed at the child who knew no wrong, 

And I thought he asked: 
"Did you?" 

I looked in his eyes, big, brown and clear, 

And I cried : "Oh, boy of mine ! 
Will you keep them true in the after-year? 

Will you leave no heart to pine ?" 
Then out of the past came another's eyes — 

Sad eyes of tear-dimmed blue — 
Did he know they were not his mother's eyes? 
For he answered me : 
"Did you?" 

— Carl Werner. 
. <8> <$> <$> 

When you've got a thing to say, 
Say it ! Don't take half a day. 
When your tale's got little in it, 
Crowd the whole thing in a minute. 
Life is short — a fleeting vapor — 
Don't you fill an eight-page paper 
With a tale that, at a pinch 
Could be crowded in an inch. 
Boil her down until she simmers, 
Polish her until she glimmers. 
When you've got a thing to say, 
Say it ! Don't take half a day. 



40 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



When the Day is Gone. 

How quiet the house is at midnight. The people who talk 
and laugh and sing in it every day are asleep, and the people 
who fell asleep in it long ago come back into it. Every house 
has these two classes of tenants. Do we love best those with 
whom we laugh and talk and sing, or the dear silent ones who 
come so noiselessly to our side and whisper to us in faint, sweet, 
far-away whispers that have no sound, so that we hear only 
their very stillness. 

I am not tired, but my pen is weary. It falls from my 
fingers and I raise my head. I start to leave the table, and my 
eyes fall upon a little book . lying on the floor. It is a little 
"First Reader." He left it there this afternoon. I remember 
just how I was impatient because he could not read the simple 
little lesson, such an easy lesson, and I told him it was a waste 
of my time to teach him, and pushed him away from me. I 
remember now. I see the flush come into the little tired face, 
the brave, cheerful look in his eyes, his mother's brave, patient 
cheeriness, struggling with his disappointment and pain. I see 
him lie down on the floor and the little face bend over the 
troublesome little lesson, such a simple, easy lesson, any baby 
might read it. Then, after a little struggle alone, it has to be 
given up, and the baffled little soldier, with one more appealing 
look toward me for reinforcements, sighs and goes away from 
the lesson he can not read, to the play that comforts him. And 
there lies the little book, just as he left it. Ah, me, I could 
kneel down and kiss it now, as though it were alive and loving. 

Why, what was my time worth to me to-day? What was 
there in the book I wanted to read one-half so precious to me 
as one cooing word from the prattling lips that quivered when 
I turned away. I hate the book I read. I will never look at it 
again. Were it the last book in the world I think I would 
burn it. All its gracious words are lies. I say to you, though 
all men praise the book, and though an hour ago I thought it 
excellent, I say to you that there is poison in its hateful pages. 
Why, what can I learn from books that baby lips can not teach 
me? Do you know I want to go to the door of his room and 
listen ; the house is so still ; maybe he is not breathing. Why, 
if between my book and my boy I choose my book, why should 
not God leave me with my books? My hateful books. 

But I was not harsh, I was only a little impatient. Because, 
you see, his lesson was so easy, so simple. Ah, me, there were 
two of us trying to read this afternoon. They were two easy, 
simple lessons. Mine was such a very simple, easy, pleasant, 
loving one to learn. Just a line, just a little throb of patience, 
of gentleness, of love that would have made my own heart glow 
and laugh and sing. The letters were so large and plain, the 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 41 



words so easy and the sentences so short. And I ! Oh, pity me, 
I missed every word. I did not read one line aright. See, here 
is my copy now; all blurred and blistered with tears and heart- 
ache, all marred and misspelled and blotted. I am ashamed to 
show it to the Master. And yet I know that he will be patient 
with me; I know how loving and gentle he will be. Why, how 
patiently and lovingly all these years he has been teaching me 
this simple lesson I smiled upon to-day. But when my little 
pupil stumbled on a single word — is my time, then, so much 
more precious than the Master's, that I can not teach the little 
lesson more than once ? 

Ah, friend, we do waste time when we plait scourges for 
ourselves. These hurrying days, these busy, anxious, shrewd, 
ambitious times of ours are wasted when they take our hearts 
away from patient gentleness, and give us fame for love and 
gold for kisses. Some day, then, when our hungry souls will 
seek for bread our selfish god will give us a stone. Life is not 
a deep, profound, perplexing problem. It is a simple, easy 
lesson, such as any child may read. You can not find its solution 
in the ponderous tomes of th° old fathers, the philosophers, the 
investigators, the theorists. It is not on your bookshelves. But 
in the warmest corner of the most unlettered heart it glows in 
letters that the blind may read; a sweet, plain, simple, easy, 
loving lesson. And when you have learned it, brother of mine, 
the world will be better and happier.— R. J. Burdette, in 
Brooklyn Eagle. 

<$> <S> <$> 

Out in the Fields. 

'The little cares that fretted me, 

I lost them yesterday 
Among the fields above the sea 

Among the winds at play; 
Among the lowing of the herds, 

The rustling of the trees, 
Among the singing of the birds, 

The humming of the bees. 

The foolish fears of what may happen, 

I cast them all away 
Among the clover-scented grass, 

Among the new-mown hay; 
Among the husking of the corn 

Where drowsy poppies nod, 
Where ill thoughts die and good are born, 

Out in the fields with God. 

— E. B. Browning. 



42 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



The Boy's Punishment. 

My little son, who looked with thoughtful eyes, 
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, 
Having my law the seventh time disobeyed, 
I struck him and dismiss'd, 
With hard words and unkiss'd. 
His mother, who was patient, being dead. 
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, 
I visited his bed. 
But found his slumbering deep, 
With darkened eyelids, and their lashes yet, 
From his late sobbing, wet. 
And I, with moan, 

Kissing away his tears, left others of my own; 
For, on a table drawn beside his head 
He had put, within his reach, 
A box of counters and a red-veined stone, 
A piece of glass abraded by the beach, 
And six or seven shells, 
A bottle of blue-bells, 

And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art, 
To comfort his sad heart. 
So, when that night I prayed 
To God, I wept and said: 
Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath, 
Not vexing Thee in death, 
And Thou remembrest of what toys 
We made our joys, 
How weakly understood 
Thy great commanded good, 
Then, fatherly not less 

Than I, whom Thou hast molded from the clay, 
Thou'll leave Thy wrath and say, 
"I will be sorry for their childishness." 
<$> <8> <S> 
Dr. Arnold's Daily Prayer. 

Dr. Arnold's daily prayer was as follows : "O Lord, I have 
a busy world around me; eye, ear and thought will be needed 
for all my work to be done in this busy world. Now, ere I 
enter on it I would commit eye, ear and thought to Thee, do 
Thou bless them, and keep their work Thine, that as through 
Thy natural laws my heart beats and my blood flows without 
any thought of mine, so my spiritual life may hold on its course 
at these times when my mind can not conspicuously turn to 
Thee to commit each particular thought to Thy service. Hear 
my prayer, for my dear Redeemer's sake. Amen." 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 43 

Would You? 

Despised and rejected of men. — Isaiah liii. 3. 

If we had seen Christ with the lame, the halt, the blind, the 

poor who cry, 
If we had known Him as He came in touch with sin and 

leprosy, 
Would we who care what people say 
Have walked with Him a little way? 
Would you or I? 

If He had bidden us to come, the night before he was to die, 
To supper in that upper room that overlooked Gethsemane, 
Would we who live by park or fen 
Have supped with common fishermen? 
Would you or I? 

If we had been among the throng that saw the lowly Saviour die, 
If we had heard the cruel song, the heartless jest, the mockery, 
Would we who now His triumph sing, 
Have hailed Him then as Lord and King? 
Would you or I? 

We love the Easter anthems sweet, our prayers ascend to God 

on high; 
We cast our treasures at His feet, and sing with joy His 

victory, 
But when as Man He lived with men 
Would we have seen His glory then? 
Would you or I? 

— Selected. 

<$> <$> <$> 

If none were sick and none were sad, 

What service could we render? 
I think if we were always glad 

We scarcely could be tender. 
Did our beloved never need 

Our patient ministration, 
Earth would grow cold, and miss, indeed, 

Its sweetest consolation. 
If sorrow never claimed our heart, 

And every wish were granted, 
Patience would die and hope depart — 

Life would be disenchanted. 

— Anon. 



44 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



The Charioteer. 

God, take the reins of my life ! 
I have driven it blindly, to left and to right, 
In mock of the rock, in the chasm's despite, 

Where the brambles were rife, 
In the blaze of the sun and the deadliest black of the night. 

O God, take the reins of my life ! 



For I am so weary and weak. 
My hands are a-quiver, and so is my heart, 
And my eyes are too tired for the teardrops to start, 

And the worn horses reek 
With the anguishing pull and the hot, heavy harness's smart, 

While I am all weary and weak. 



But Thou wilt be peace, wilt be power. 
Thy hand on the reins and Thine eye on the way 
Shall be wisdom to guide and controlling to stay, 

And my life, in that hour, 
Shall be led into leading, and rest when it comes to obey; 

For Thou wilt be peace and all power. 



Now, Lord, without tarrying, now ! 
While eyes can look up and while reason remains, 
And my hand yet has strength to surrender the reins, 

Ere death stamp my brow 
And pour coldness and stillness through all the mad course of 
my veins — 

Come, Lord, without tarrying, now! 

I yield Thee my place, which is Thine. 
Appoint me to lie on the chariot floor; 
Yea, appoint me to lie at Thy feet, and no more, 

While the glad axles shine, 
And the happy wheels run on their course to the heavenly door, 

Now Thou hast my place, which is Thine. 

— Amos R. Wells, in The Outlook. 

Mrs. Wigg's Philosophy. 

Looks like ever-thing in the world comes right, if we jes' 
wait long enough. — Alice Hegan Rice. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 45 



Priscilla — Past and Present. 

Priscilla, maid of Plymouth town, 
In kerchief white and gown of brown, 
With whirring wheel in days of yore, 
Was wont to spin before the door. 

Ah, what a picture then she made! 
No wonder that the gallants stayed 
A moment there — or maybe, two — 
To talk to her, as so would you. 

Those days of gallantry are dead, 
And only memories rise instead 
Of love, of hate, of flashing steel, 
Of sweet Priscilla at her wheel. 

Gone is Priscilla, did I say? 

Faith, but I saw her yesterday, 

And even as in days of yore 

Her wheel stood just before the door. 

She's still the skill of spinning, yes, 
But not with flax — what, can't you guess? 
What care she gives the shining steel ! 
For now Priscilla rides her wheel. 

— Douglas Zabriskie Doty. 

<S> <§> <$> 

In Church. 

Just in front of my pew sits a maiden — 

A little brown wing on her hat, 
With its touches of tropical azure, 

And the sheen of the sun upon that; 
Through the bloom-colored panes shines a glory 

By which, the vast shadows are stirred, 
But I pine for the spirit and splendor 

That painted the wing of the bird. 

The organ rolls down its great anthem ; 

With the soul of a song it is blent; 
But for me, I am sick for the singing 

Of one little song that is spent. 
The voice of the curate is gentle: 

"No sparrow shall fall to the ground;" 
But the poor broken wing on the bonnet 

Is mocking the merciful sound. 



46 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



The House by the Side of the Road. 

"He was a friend to man, and he lived in a house by th& 
side of the road" — Homer. 

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn. 

In the peace of their self-content; 
There are souls, like stars, that dwell apart. 

In a fellowless firmament; 
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths 

Where the highways never ran; 
But let me live by the side of the road 

And be a friend to man. 

Let me live in a home by the side of the road 

Where the 'race of men go by — 
The men who are good and the men who are bad, 

As good and as bad as I. 
I would not sit in the scorner's seat, 

Or hurl the cynic's ban — 
Let me live in a house by the side of the road 

And be a friend to man. 

I see from my house by the side of the road, 

By the side of the highway of life, 
The men who press on with the arbor of hope, 

The men who are faint with the strife. 
But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears — 

Both parts of an infinite plan — 
Let me live in my house by the side of the road 

And be a friend to man. 

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead 

And mountains of wearisome height; 
That the road passes on through the long afternoon 

And stretches away to the night. 
But still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice, 

And weep with the strangers that moan, 
Nor live in my house by the side of the road 

Like a man who dwells alone. 

Let me live in my house by the side of the road, 

• Where the race of men eo by — 
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong, 

Wise, foolish, and so am I. 
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat, 

Or hurl the cynic's ban? 
Let me live in my house by the side of the road 

And be a friend to man. — Sam Walter Foss. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 47 



There is no Death. 

There is no death, we only rise 

To higher altitudes of life; 
When in the dust this casket lies, 

And we surcease from mortal strife; 
There is no death, the patient soul 

Wears out its earthly cerements, 
Puts on the Golden Aureole, 

And soars serene in glory hence. 

There is no death, but each true life 

Is safely "hid with Christ in God;" 
With vital force forever rife, 

Tho' Earth takes back her lifeless clod 
There is no death, for shade of man 

And woman never were alive 
And 'twas not in the Master's plan 

That soul and shadow long should strive. 

There is no death, but soon we pass 

Into the restful summer land, 
To sail in peace the "sea of Glass," 

Or wander o'er the Golden Strand. 
There is no death, tho' sure and soon 

The silent boatman calls for us, 
With funeral dirge and mournful croon, 

The lamp of fate to darken thus. 

There is no death, O wand'rer pale, 

Amid the glimmering sheen of Earth, 
'Tis but the dim and shimmering veil, 

Dividing from a higher birth. 
There is no death, dismiss all fear 

For Christ hath lit Earth's gloomy crypts 
With consolation, love and cheer 

'Mid even "the Earthquake and Eclipse." 

There is no death, but in its stead 

Blest Apotheosis oL life, 
A resurrection from the dead, 

Debris of this sad world of strife. 
There is no death, which does not give 

Existence vastly more enhanced, 
Far sweeter in its realm to live 

Than this to loftiest height advanced. 



48 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



There is no death, then O prepare, 

For joy in Holier Realms than this, 
Our Father's love and peace to share, 

Our Mother's smile to crown our bliss. 
There is no death, exulting sing, 
Flee, gloom and sorrow, all away; 
"O Death where is thy vaunted sting, 
O Grave, where is thy victory?" 

— Oliver C. Hampton. 

Restless Heart, Don't Worry So. 

Dear restless heart, be still! Don't fret and worry so; 
God hath a thousand ways his love and help to show; 
Just trust, and trust, and trust, until his will you know. 

Dear, restless heart, be still ; for peace is God's own smile, 
His love can every wrong and sorrow reconcile. 
Just love and love, and love and calmly wait awhile. 

Dear, restless heart, be brave ! Don't moan and sorrow so. 
He hath a meaning kind in the chilly winds that blow. 
Just hope and hope, and hope until you braver grow. 

Dear, restless heart, repose upon His heart an hour. 

His heart is strength and life, his heart is bloom and flower. 

Just rest and rest and rest within his tender power. 

Dear, restless heart, be still ! Don't toil and hurry so ; 

God is the Silent One, forever calm and slow. 

Just wait and wait and wait, and work with him below. 

Dear, restless heart, be still! Don't struggle to be free. 
God's life is in your life ; from him you may not flee. 
Just pray and pray and pray, till you have faith to see. 

— Edith Willis Linn. 
«> <S> <e> 

Trust God and See. 

A body wearing out, 

A crumbling house of clay! 
O agony of doubt 

And darkness and dismay ! 
Trust God i.nd see 
What I shall be— 
His best surprise 
Before your eyes. — Maltbie D. Babcock. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 49 



Give Us Men. 

Give us Men ! 
Men — from every rank, 
Fresh and free and frank; 
Men of thought and reading, 
Men of light and leading, 
Men of loyal breeding, 
The Nation's welfare speeding; 
Men of faith and not of fiction, 
Men of lofty aim in action: 
Give us Men' — I say again, 
Give us Men! 

Give us Men ! 
Strong and stalwart ones: 
Men whom highest hope inspires, 
Men whom purest honor fires, 
Men who trample Self beneath them, 
Men who make their country wreath them 

As her noble sons, 

Worthy of their sires, 
Men who never shame their mothers, 
Men who never fail their brothers, 
True, however false are others: 

Give us Men> — I say again, 
Give us Men ! 

Give us Men ! 
Men who, when the tempest gathers, 
Grasp the Standard of their fathers 

In the thickest fight: 
Men who strike for home and altar 
(Let the coward cringe and falter), 

God defend the right ! 
True as truth though lorn and lonely, 
Tender, as the brave are only; 
Men who tread where saints have trod, 
Men for Country — Home — and God: 
Give us Men ! I say again — again — 
Give us such men ! 

— Bishop of Exeter. 

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"Through the pass of By-and-by you go to the valley of 
Never." 



50 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



Men Wanted. 

God give us men ! A time like this demands 

Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands ; 

Men whom the lust of office does not kill; 

Men whom the spoil of office can not buy; 

Men who have honor, men who will not lie; 

Men who can stand before a demagogue 

And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking! 

Tall men, sun crowned, who live above the fog 

In public duty and in private thinking: 

For when the rabble, with their thumbworn creeds — 

Their large professions and their title deeds — 

Mingle in selfish strife, lo ! Freedom weeps, 

Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps. 

— Josiah Gilbert Holland. 

<S> <S> <S> 

Trouble. 

Do you know what it was that caused you to fret, 

Only a year ago? 
Can you tell me the source of your utmost regret, 

Only a year ago? 
It looked big to you then and you moped and you pined, 
The long nights were sleepless and troubled your mind, 
Yet you can't tell what happened, in looking behind, 

Only a year ago? 

Do you know why you frowned as you journeyed your way, 

Only a month ago? 
Can you tell now what made all your blue skies look gray? 

Only a month ago? 
What trouble was it that your happiness marred, 
That caused you to say that your heart had grown hard, 
And from all future joys in this world you were barred, 

Only a month ago? 

You've forgotten them all, both the great and the small, 

The pain and the woe ; 
For few are the troubles we ever recall 

As onward we go. 
Ah, few are the troubles, my brother, that last, 
They seem big at first, but the moment they're past, 
They slip from the mind, for they never stick fast. 

It is well that it's so. 

— Detroit Free Press. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 51 



The Four Guests. 

A knock at the door — but he 

Was dreaming a dream of fame; 
And the one who knocked drew softly back, 

And never again he came. 
A knock at the door — as soft — 

As soft — as shy — as a dove. 
But the dreamer dreamed till the guest was gone — 

And the guest was Love. 

A knock at the door — again 

The dreamer dreamed away 
Unheeding — deaf to the gentle call 

Of the one who came that day. 
A knock at the door — no more 

The guest to that door came. 
Yet the dreamer dreamed of the one who called — 

For the guest was Fame. 

A knock at the door — but still 

He gave it no reply ; 
And the waiting guest gave a cheery hail 

Ere he slowly wandered by. 
A knock at the door — in dreams 

The dreamer fain would grope, 
Till the guest stole on, with a humbled sigh — 

And the guest was Hope. 

A knock at the door — 'twas loud, 

With might in every stroke; 
And the dreamer stopped in his dreaming thought, 

And suddenly awoke. 
A knock at the door — he ran 

With the swiftness of a breath; 
And the door swung wide, and the guest came in — 

And the guest was Death. 

— Baltimore American. 

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O, little afterthought, I wish 

You had not come to me. 
For with myself I otherwise 

Quite satisfied should be. 
You're excellent, but I deplore 
That you should not have come before. 



52 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



Why is it that you are not prompt, 

But saunter in instead 
When all the things I've done are done, 

And all I've said is said? 
Of nuisances you are the worst ; 
Don't come, unless you come at first! 

— Life. 
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My Garden. 

"Weeds, Lord — a tangled brake! 
Thy plowshare must run deep, 
And cut and scar the garden of my heart." 

"Nay, child; let love's seed wake, 
With life resistless leap, 
Fling branches wide 
On every side — 
The weeds shall choke and die, the new life start." 

— Luther Davis. 
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The Better Prayer. 

I thank Thee, Lord, for strength of arm 

To win my bread, 
And that beyond my need is meat 

For friend unfed. 
I thank thee much for bread to live, 
I thank thee more for bread to give. 

I thank thee, Lord, for snug-thatched roof 

In cold and storm, 
And that beyond my need is room 

For friend forlorn. 
I thank thee much for place to rest, 
But more for shelter for my guest. 

I thank thee, Lord, for lavish love 

On me bestowed, 
Enough to share with loveless folk 

To ease their load. 
Thy love to me I ill could spare, 
Yet dearer is the love I share. 

— Robert Davis, in The Outlook. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 53 



I Wonder. 

I wonder if ever a song was sung 

But the singer's heart sang sweeter ! 

I wonder if ever a rhyme was rung 

But the thought surpassed the meter! 

I wonder if ever a sculptor wrought 

'Till the cold stone echoed his ardent thought ! 

Or if ever a painter, with light and shade, 

The dream of his inmost heart portrayed ! 

I wonder if ever a rose was found 

And there might not be a fairer ! 

Or if ever a glittering gem was ground, 

And we dreamed not of a rarer ! 

Ah ! never on earth shall we find the best ! 

But it waits for us in the land of rest; 

And a perfect thing we shall never behold 

'Till we pass the portal of shining gold. 

— Anonymous. 
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My Sweethearts Three. 

I have read of men who were sorely vexed, 
Their spirits troubled, their souls perplexed, 
For to too many lovers they were annexed 
And this gave them a deal of trouble. 

Again, some men, not a few, I have known, 
Who pined and fretted with sigh and groan 
Because, because they were alone, 

And had no sweet feminine double. 

The latter I pity, at the former I smile, 
For, while they are moaning, I dull time beguile, 
Jogging along through life, mile after mile, 
Happy, bound with a triple tether. 

One is a jolly, a winsome sprite, 
One a darling, and unsurpassed quite, 
The third is a jewel, the brightest bright. 
We're a happy quartet together. 

Never an accent of jealous strife 
Nor clashing preferment disturbs our life, 
For these are my daughters and dear, good wife, 
My unanimous sweethearts three. 
— James Boardman Cable, in New Orleans Picayune. 



54 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



Intercession. 

Oh, for a passionate passion for souls ! 

Oh, for a pity that yearns ! 

Oh, for a love that loves unto death ! 

Oh, for a fire that burns ! 

Oh, for the pure prayer power that prevails, 

That pours itself out for the lost; 

Victorious prayer in the Conqueror's name, 
Oh, for a Pentecost ! 

Infinite Savior, in mighty compassion 

Take Thy poor child to-night; 
That which she hath not in tenderness give her, 

Teach her to pray and to neht. 
Cost what it may of self-crucifixion 

So that Thy will be done; 
Cost what it may of loneliness after 

So only souls be won ! 

Jesus, my Savior, beyond telling rare 

The jewel I ask of Thee, 
So much it meaneth, this talisman, prayer — 

Wilt thou not give it to me? 

Thou art speaking now. — Dost Thou give to me 

A choice, as in olden time? 
Dear Lord, wilt Thou put the end of the rope 

That pulleth God's prayer-bell chime 
Into my hand, with Thine enfolding, 

That nothing may be of me? 
When it soundeth above, our Father will know 

It is rung, O Beloved, by Thee. 

i — Selected. 

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Optimism. 

There's a bad side, 'tis the sad side 

Never mind it ! 
There's a bright side, 'tis the right side — 

Try to find it ! 
Pessimism's but a screen 
Thrust the light and you between — 
But the sun shines bright, I ween, 

Just behind it ! 

— Jean Dwight Franklin, in The Circle. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 55 



What You Can Do. 

Have you ever had your path suddenly turn sunshiny because 
of a cheerful word? Have you ever wondered if this could be 
the same world, because some one had been unexpectedly kind 
to you? You can make to-day the same for somebody. It is 
only a question of a little imagination, a little time and trouble. 
Think now: What can I do to make some one happy — old 
persons, children, servants — even a bone for the dog or sugar 
for the bird 1—MoJtbie D. Babcock. 

® <S> <8> 

My Burden. 

God laid upon my back a grievous load, 
A heavy cross to bear along the road. 

I staggered on, and lo! one weary day, 
An angry lion sprang across my way. 

I prayed to God, and swift at His command 
The cross became a weapon in my hand. 

It slew my raging enemy, and then 
Became a cross upon my back again. 

I faltered many a league, . until at length, 
Groaning, I fell, and had no further strength. 

God," I cried, "I am so weak and lame!" 
Then straight my cross a winged staff became. 

It swept me on till I regained the loss,, 
Then leaped upon my back, again a cross. 

1 reached a desert. O'er the burning track 
I persevered, the cross upon my back. 

No shade was there, and in the cruel sun 

I sank at last, and thought my days were done. 

But lo! the Lord works many a blest surprise — 
The cross became a tree before my eyes ! 

I slept; I woke, to feel the strength of ten. 
I found the cross upon my back again. 

And thus through ail my days, from that to this, 
The cross, my burden, has become my bliss; 

Nor ever shall I lay the burden down, 

For God some day will make the cross a crown ! 

—Amos R. Wells. 



56 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



Mary Had a Little Lamb. 

"Mary had a little lamb!" 

The poet read the verse, 
And then he made a few remarks, 

And each remark was terse. 
"I guess she did," he muttered, 

And his face grew wan and white, 
"I ought to know, for it was I 

Who took her out that night. 
Yes, Mary had a little lamb, 
She also had some chowdered clam; 
Likewise mock-turtle consomme 
And caviar from Russia way; 
And then some roe, and then some shad 
Were other things that Mary had. 
She used to be my heart's delight, 
But heavens, what an appetite ! 
Before she finished I was stuck 
Two dollars for a ruddy duck; 
And — possibly you think I joke, 
She also ordered artichoke; 
And, then, before the lamb came in, 
Some a la Newberg terrapin; 
For salad, alligator pear, 
And then imported Camembert; 
Some peaches and some strawberries. 
I think that I forgot the peas, 
And lima beans, and spinach green, 
And stuffed red peppers in between; 
The juice of grape fruit in a glass, 
Then eclairs and a demitasse, 
And salted almonds by the peck — 
That's what she had — I got the check. 
I'm living now on bread and jam 
Since Mary had that little lamb." 

Mary had a little waist, 

Where waists were meant to grow, 
But everywhere the fashions went, 
That waist was sure to go. 

<$> <$> <$> 

Little drops of whisky, little drops of gin, 

Make the drinker frisky, and the copper runs him in. 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 57 



Picture Puzzles. 

Seated one day at a table, 

I was having forty fits, 
As my fingers hovered nervously 

Over those jig-sawed bits. 

I know not what I was hunting 

To finish a soldier's face; 
But I struck one queer-shaped fragment 

That fitted that queer-shaped space. 

It linked all those silly features 

Into one solid man; 
And as I had finished' his shoulder, 

I began to see the plan. 

It helped with the background also, 

A sort of guide it made; 
But I moved some other pieces, 

And somehow it got mislaid! 

I sought, but I sought it vainly, 

That one small piece so queer, 
That out of a hundred others 

Fitted that soldier's ear. 

I couldn't go on without it, 

I fretted and fumed and fussed; 
Then — somebody joggled my elbow! 

And I gave up ; -» disgust. 

It may be that some time or other . 

I will try that thing again; 
But not till I'm in an asylum — 

And I doubt if I do it then. — Life. 

Expected Guests. 

A crowd of troubles passed him by, 

As he with courage waited; 
He said : "Where do your troubles fly 

When you are thus belated?" 
'We go," they said, "to those who mope, 

Who look on life dejected; 
Who weakly say good-bye to hope. 

We go where we're expected!" 

— Frances Elkin Allison. 



58 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 

Be Pleasant. 

[Lines pasted over a busy man's desk.] 

'Tis easy enough to be pleasant 

When life flows by like a song. 
But the man worth while 
Is the man with a smile 

When everything goes dead wrong. 

We call him brave who fronts with courage high 

The lion in his way, 
But he is also brave who patiently .^ears 
Little trials such as you and I 

Meet every day. 

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There are meters of accent and meters of tone, 
But the best of all meters, is to meet her alone. 

There are letters of paper and letters in stone, 
But the best of all letters is to let her alone. 

<$> <$> <» 

There is a man who never drinks, 
Or smokes, or chews, or swears, 

Who never gambles, never flirts, 
And shuns all sinful snares — 
, He's paralyzed! 

There is a man who never does 

A thing that is not right; 
His wife can tell just where he is, 

_At morning, noon and night — 
He's dead! 

<$> <s> <e> 

A Dutchman addressing his dog, said: "You vas only a 
dog, but I wish I vas you; when you go mit your bed in, you 
shust turn round dree dimes and lay down; ven I go mit the 
bed in, I hav to lock up de blace yet, and wind up the clock 
and put the cat out, and ondress myself yet and my frou vakes 
up and cries and I half to valk him mid de house round yet, 
den may be, ven I get myself to bed, it is time to get up again. 
Ven you get up, you shust stretch yourself, scratch your neck a 
leedle and you vas up. I haf to light de fire, put on de kiddle, 
scrap some mit my vife already and get myself breakfast yet. 
You play around all day and haf plenty of fun. I haf to work 
all day and have plenty o>f drubble. Ven you die you ves dead ; 
ven I die maybe I have to go to hell yet." 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 59 



"What Matters It." 

What matters it who wins the fight, 

You or I or another one? 
We claimed to struggle for the right, 

Why change when the prize is won? 

What matters if men laud your name, 

If bartered honor was the price 
You paid for power, or fleeting fame? 

Better to never rise. 

What matter if churlish jealousy 

Stabs, as it alone knows how? 
It wounds its victims in the back, 

But can not brand the brow. 

What matter if the critic's steel 

Is felt, if God has called your name ? 
Why crush the energy you feel 

For work that's thine in fear of blame? 

What matter if some trait of thine 

Leads even friends to judge thee wrong? 

Be thy true self, do not repine, 
For ever sing the victor's song. 

— By a Sister of the Humility of Mary. 

<$> <£> <S> 

To-Day. 

With every rising of the sun 
Think of your life as just begun; 
The past has shrived and buried deep 
All yesterdays ; there let them sleep. 

Nor seek to summon back one ghost 
Of that innumerable host. 
Concern yourself with but to-day, 
Woo it, and teach it to obey 

Your will and wish. Since time began 
To-day has been the friend of man; 
But in his blindness and his sorrow, 
He looks to yesterday and to-morrow. 



60 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



You and to-day ! a soul sublime 
And the great, pregnant hour of time, 
With God himself to bind the twain, 
Go forth, I say, attain, attain. 

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 

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My Brother. 

Who is thy brother? 
Is it the toiler who suffers and groans, 
Who reared by his sweat all temples and thrones? 
Is it the pauper who begs for his bread? 
Is it the murderer shrinking in dread? 
Is it the convict alone in his cell? 
Is it the drunkard, whose home is a hell? 

Yea ! each is thy brother. 

Who is thy brother? 
The lowest that lives ; the dregs of the street, 
Those whom the great trample under their feet, 
Those who sin, suffer, get hungry, and die,. 
Those who in prison and pesthouses lie, 
The rich and the poor, the cruel and kind, 
The wise one who sees the wretch who is blind- 
All, all are thy brothers. 

Who are thy brothers? 
O world, can ye ask? O world, will ye see 
That each human soul forever must be 
A ray of the infinite, great Over-Soul, 
That each is a part of the absolute whole? 
O, when will ye learn that ye can not rise 
While one fellow man in the mire still lies? 

For all men are brothers. 

<S> <*> <§> 

My Fault. 

I dream'd I saw the Saviour climb 

Up Calvary, up Calvary; 

I sorrowed, oh, I sorrowed sore 

To see the heavy cross He bore: 

I cried, "Ah, Christ, and must it be?" 

He sigh'd, "This cross was made by thee." 



WORTH WHILE PIECES. 61 



I dream'd I saw the Saviour scourged 
Up Calvary, up Calvary; 
I wept to see the drops of gore 
Ooze from the cruel thorns He wore: 
But, lo ! His voice it called to me : 
'The sharpest thorn was set by thee." 

I dream'd I saw the Saviour slain 

On Calvary, on Calvary; 

When thro' His hands the hard nails tore, 

My heart was pierced to the core: 

But, hark! a whisper from the tree: 

'The spikes are but the sins of thee." 



— S. M. B. 



<$><$>«> 



When Papa Holds My Hand. 

I'm not a-scared o' horses ner street cars ner anyfing, 

Ner automobiles ner th' cabs; an' once, away last spring, 

A grea' big hook an' ladder fing went slapty-bangin' by 

An' I was purtnear in th' way, an' didn't even cry; 

'Cause when I'm down town I go 'round wif papa — un'erstand, 

An' I'm not 'fraid o' nuffin' when my papa holds my hand. 

W'y street cars couldn't hurt him, an* th' horses wouldn't dare ; 

An' if a automobile run agin 'im, he won't care! 

He'll al'ys keep between me an' th' fings 'ith danger in — 

I know so, 'cause he al'ys has, 'ist ev'ry place we been ; 

An' nen at night I laugh myself clear into Dreamyland 

An' never care how dark it is, when papa holds my hand. 

'S a funny fing — one night when I puttended I was 'sleep 

An' papa's face was on my hand, I felt a somepin creep 

Across my fingers; an' it felt ezactly like a tear, 

But couldn't been, for wasn't any cryin', t' I could hear. 

An' when I asked him 'bout it he 'ist laughed to beat th' band — 

But I kep' wonderin' what it was 'at creeped out on my hand. 

Sometimes my papa holds on like I maybe helped him, too, 
An' makes me feel most awful good puttendin' like I do. 
An' papa says — w'y papa says — w'y somepin like 'at we 
An' God 'ist keep a holdin' hands, the same as him an' me. 
He says some uvver fings 'at I 'ist partly un'erstand, 
But I know this — I'm not afraid when papa, holds my hand. 

— Strickland W. Gillilan. 



62 WORTH WHILE PIECES. 



The One Great Remedy. 

If I am asked what is the remedy for the deeper sorrows 
of the human heart — what a man should chiefly look to in his 
progress through life as the power that is to sustain him under 
trials and enable him manfully to confront his afflictions — I 
must point to something which, in a well-known hymn, is called 
"The Old, Old Story," told of an old, old book, and taught with 
an old, old teaching, which is the greatest and best gift ever 
given to mankind. — W. E. Gladstone. 

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What I am to be I am now becoming. 

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It takes two worlds to get things straight. 

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Our lives are songs, God writes the words, 

We set them to music at pleasure; 
And the song grows glad or sweet or sad, 
As we choose to fashion the measure. 

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All the worth of living 
Is loving, hoping, giving. 
Love survives the breath; 
Hope grows strong in death; 
Gifts thy God returns to thee 
With increase — through eternity! 

— Mary Wheaton Lyon. 

The first requisite in education shall be to the end that the 
individual shall earn his own living. — Elbert Hubbard. 

<♦> <S> <S> 
Lord, help me make this rule — 
To think of life as school — 
And try my best 
To stand each test, 
And do my work — 
And nothing shirk. — M. D. Babcock, 

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control — these three 
alone lead life to sovereign power. — Tennyson. 

<S> <S> <S> 
The greatest luxury is that of doing good. 

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A kind word often does more good than a large gift. 



*9H 



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